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| Author(s): |
Gabriel Antonio Bomfim Seghetto
Total Authors: 1
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| Document type: | Master's Dissertation |
| Press: | Campinas, SP. |
| Institution: | Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas |
| Defense date: | 2024-06-20 |
| Examining board members: |
Aldair Carlos Rodrigues;
Lucilene Reginaldo;
Crislayne Gloss Marão Alfagali
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| Advisor: | Aldair Carlos Rodrigues |
| Abstract | |
This work studies the social and political meanings of the words mulatto and pardo in eighteenth-century Angola. It investigates whether both color qualifications were claimed as group identities, a phenomenon observed in Southeast Brazil for the same period. The investigation will be conducted against the backdrop of the political and commercial relationships between the coast (the city of Luanda) and the hinterlands, the place of residence of political entities that could be independent or vassals to the Portuguese Crown through its liaison, the colonial state. The enslaved also originated from the hinterlands. Defining one’s identity was essential for protection against enslavement by traders and slavers. The dissertation considers the tension between the acts of self-identification and being identified by the colonial authorities. It argues that the century-long construction of meaning for mulatto and pardo happened in response to the redefinition of politico-cultural boundaries between the colonial state and the African polities. To identify an individual by any of the two aforementioned color qualifications hinged on whether one declared affiliation to the "heathen" and "barbaric" African states or the Portuguese "civilization." The work was based on analyzing letters by colonial officials, Portuguese policy for Angola, accounts of daily life in Luanda and the hinterlands, travel journals, headcounts, and demographics. From that array of sources, the investigation recovers the uses for mulatto and pardo as employed in their original sociocultural settings. By comparing the definitions for mulatto and pardo, one can discuss the setting of politico-cultural boundaries and also analyze the variation of definitions for both color qualifications in the South Atlantic (AU) | |
| FAPESP's process: | 21/08899-9 - The term mulatto in compared perspective: skin color classifications between Mariana and Luanda (18th century) |
| Grantee: | Gabriel Antonio Bomfim Seghetto |
| Support Opportunities: | Scholarships in Brazil - Master |